Regenerative Leadership: The New Path to Growth with Jordanna Eyre

You know that moment when growth starts to feel less like momentum and more like dragging a grand piano uphill? Yeah, that's not progress. That's pressure. Business operators are burning out trying to scale through force and mindset hacks that only treat the symptoms. But what if the real solution has less to do with grinding harder and And more to do with how you move through time and energy itself. And that's what we're talking about today on Experience Leadership.

Welcome to Experience Leadership, a podcast that challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs just like you to dare to be the exception. Join our host, Customer Experience Expert Marc Haine, as he uncovers relevant and timely content to help you script and direct your business and teams to create jaw-dropping experiences your customers and staff deserve. Here is the host of Experience Leadership, author of Lights! Camera! Action!, customer experience expert Marc Haine.

Welcome to this episode of Experience Leadership. I am your host, customer and employee experience strategist Marc Haine. And I'm so glad that you're here with us today because today, We are tackling one of the most dangerous myths in business, that growth comes from pushing harder. My guest for this episode is Jordana Iyer, the Chief Sorceress of Life and Business and creator of the Spiral Leadership Mythology. And we will be putting a spotlight on how leaders can scale their businesses without carrying the crushing weight of pressure and burnout. by aligning with the natural systems of creation for more flow, freedom, and authentic power. I do have one simple request, though. If there's somebody in your circle who could benefit from the insights that we're sharing with you today, please do them a favor and pass along a link to this episode. You know, we've all been there. You've built the systems, hired the people, set the goals, and still, the more you grow, the heavier it feels. That's not growth. That's pressure disguised as progress. And that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, are you scaling your business or are you just scaling your stress? A little time for introspection. Drop your thoughts in the comments. I'd love to know how pressure shows up in your leadership and what you're doing to release it? I'd love to have you as part of this conversation. As I mentioned, my guest today is Jordana Iyer, the Chief Sorceress of Life and Business and founder of the Spiral Growth System. She's worked with leaders from LinkedIn, Microsoft, Cisco, Stanford, helping them unlock more regenerative human approaches to growth. Jordana helps leaders build movement that expands effortlessly without the burnout. When she's not redefining leadership as we know it, she's guiding visionary changemakers across 6 continents to kind of step into authentic power with time and freedom. Jordana, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.

Thank you, Marc. It is wonderful to be here.

So before we get too deep into today's topic, could you tell us a little bit about who your clients are? How are they suffering and how are you serving them?

Absolutely. So I work with leaders of all shapes and sizes, everything from like founders of paradigm-shifting startups to Leaders in Fortune 500 companies or just other kind of regular companies, anything from director level all the way upwards and upwards. Often the people that I work with are scaling on some level, like they're, they're either scaling the business or they're scaling their leadership role. Like for example, maybe they're leading 30 people and they're about to step into a role of leading 300, or it could be that they're just getting a new business off the ground, ready to scale that because they already know how to run a business. ready to scale. The caveat though is that all of the people that I work with have done enough personal growth to recognize that scale isn't just about doing, it's also about being. And so that's why they come to me, to intersect the doing and the being so that the doing actually becomes more powerful and the being becomes more expansive so they don't actually have to do it all and the business can start to scale on its own.

I love the phrase that you used because you're right. I think most people when they scale, they're just scaling because They're looking at their business. They want to make more sales, more profit, bring more people on. They want to expand. We see this in franchises constantly, this whole big push to get bigger, bigger, bigger. But then at no point is there anything about being inside the strategic plan.

Within the strategic plan implies that you're going to have to give it all up, that you're going to have to give up the fulfillment. You're going to have to give up basically anything that doesn't fulfill the bottom line. And if you're leading your own company, you actually know that that's not going to be supportive of the company. And if you're a leader inside of somebody else's company, you start to get to know along the way, oh wait, if it's all hustle and I'm only working towards the bottom line, that I'm actually not really giving into the company. I'm not giving to the people in it. I'm not giving to my family at the same time, right? And so, there's really like a redefining and a new paradigm building inside of leadership that we're seeing across the board.

It's interesting because would you say then that the biggest mistake that leaders are making when they are scaling is they're actually scaling through pressure? So, what does that look like in real life? Like, how do people recognize that this is what they're doing?

Some do and some don't, right? Because the pressure is often disguised as what fulfills the status quo. So, there are like, there are physical pressures that a lot of the time we think are just the way things are. So be it friction with a business partner or an oppressive boss or company culture that doesn't fit our way of being, we might think that those things are, or just the way they are, or like something that we have to push against or try to work really hard to change the physical outside, not realizing that the pressure is actually coming from something in us that is guiding a paradigm change, right? And then there's the energetic pressures. That we also often don't realize are pressure, like exhaustion at the end of the day, or there might be things that you're like, I just can't get motivated to do this, but I know that it would be good for me, right? There are all of these energetic pressures that we see inside of how we show up in business. And they're actually, again, trying to lead towards depressurizing because the idea is that pressure is part of the game. But it's not the opposition. It's actually the guidepost and the goalpost showing us to where things can shift. And then when we learn to work with the pressure instead of against it, it relieves that pressure. We grow, we expand, and we're actually able to do, be, and have more inside of the business, get more done, and feel lighter and freer doing it.

A lot of self-help and developmental things for leaders talks about mindset. And that, you know, this is about, it's about mindset. It's about this consistent action mindset. But from what I'm gathering from what you're saying is that the mindset work alone isn't enough to create kind of the sustainable change that we're looking for.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it's not to say that mindset is bad or wrong, or that you shouldn't work on your mindset. Rather, it's one very small piece of the puzzle. And what I find with the leaders I work with is that mindset is actually a later-on piece of the puzzle. Yeah. So mindset is, it's really a later on piece of the puzzle because what happens when we begin with mindset is we're trying to lollipop and unicorn wallpaper ourselves over the deeper, deeper problems, which everything's energy, right? And so what's really going on under the surface is an energy that we must work with, that we must learn to change, to shift, to transmute. And if we disregard that, if we ignore it, the energy has to go somewhere. So the mindset work goes on top of the energy that is unsupportive, making it harder to actually shift the mindset.

Right.

When we work energy underneath first, then a lot of the mindset stuff happens organically. Like we don't even have to focus on it. And then if there is mindset shift, it's just so much smoother to shift those neural pathways because the energy underneath is no longer obstructing it.

Gotcha.

It's really interesting because, you know, I'm the last of the baby boomers and, you know, my background has been, you know, I grew up in the industrial age as the industrial age kind of topped into the knowledge age. And now we're in this relational age. But it still seems to me that people's perception of leadership, like the models themselves, are very, very linear. Are those models now outdated?

Oh yeah. And here's what can be confusing and strange for those who are linear thinkers organically. Having a sense of logic does not mean— having a sense of logic that is like your gift is not the same as nonlinear thinking being part and parcel of leadership. Like, we need to take the nonlinear approach, but what we find when we let the things that we deemed needed to be linear be nonlinear, what we actually find is they lead us to a deeper sense of both intuition and logic. So, the logic still plays a role and like the data gathering and the things that we wanted in the linearity still come into play. But they make a lot more sense. There's a lot more we can do with them when we're not trying to force linearity.

Right. And so, how does one know? Like, if you have a leader out there, how does one know that their model that they're playing with is this linear model and they're not being very flexible with being able to open themselves up to other ways of thinking?

That is a great question. Now, one element can be through how, when we interact with people, if you're interacting with creative people and you are seeing them as the opposition, chances are there's something in you that is like hellbent on linearity. And it's not to say that it's bad or wrong. It's just that there's work to do on your own internal sense of masculine, feminine structure and flow, right? So that's one example. Another is if you are Trying to push against the plan. Like, say you create a plan. Planning is great. Strategy is great. But if you find yourself at a spot where you're like, oh, what I thought was going to work isn't working, or what I thought was the next step isn't, and you keep pushing through, you are trying to take the linear approach. And that's where it gets exhausting and draining, right? And it's not to say that the plan that you set isn't going to somehow, at the end of the day, be supportive. Is that you need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture first. Let that transform what needs to shift inside of you. And then, you'll know what the next steps are, even if it's not the step 1, step 2, step 3 that you thought it was.

For the people tuning in, are there any early warning signs that a leader or even a team is scaling through this force? Because as you were talking, I was thinking Bruce Lee's quote of, be like water, seems to be like the best metaphor. for what we're talking about today. But all too often, it is that. It's like, no, no, we made a plan. And so, we have to barrel through. But sir, the plan's not working. We have the plan. And so, what warning signs are leaders and teams experiencing as they try to scale through the force instead of using this flow that you're talking about?

It's a really good question. Now, I'm not going to be able to cover them all today because the warning signs are actually many.

Okay.

One though is what we would least expect. So, if you're scaling and things are exhausting and your team is drained and burnt out, it's not to say, yay, we're scaling. It's like, no, actually that's a warning sign. Because if they keep going like that, it's going to thwart the rest of the scale process. So, that is a huge warning sign. Another, if there's a lot of balls to juggle, like we think, and this could even be like systems fail, technology glitches. Yeah, those things can happen. You know, life is lifey. But if you're hitting a lot of those, then there's a really good chance that there's something going on in the energy field of what you're setting up, you or the team, that is actually co-creating more friction. And another is relationship friction. Like, if there's relationship friction that is coming up, it's not— that's not just the way it is. It's that the relationship friction is part of where there's friction going on inside of you that is draining your process to scale. So, these are all examples of where we're falling prey to the pressure, not realizing it. And again, there's so many more examples where those came from. The bottom line though is whether there's anything that's going on in the physical world of your business that looks like this isn't how it should be, that slows down your decision-making, exhausts or drains you, shifts your relationships, all of that is a sign that you're not dealing with the pressure. in the way that it is intended to be.

And so is it fair to say then that these pressures manifest internally before they manifest externally?

Yes, 100%. And certain people will see them internally first and certain will see them externally first. But often, even if we're seeing them internally, we are going to see them externally. And that's the place where we most ignore them. Because again, we think, oh, that's just the world being the world or people being people. But really, it's usually a sign that there's a pressure inside of us cultivating the experience of pressure outside of us.

And so, would it be fair to say that when leaders start blaming all these forces that they should be looking internally first? Everything you just said, every interaction I've had with leaders and managers who have a lot of crisis and a lot of things going on in their world, they're pointing their fingers at a lot of things and blaming a lot of things. But really, the core of the issue is happening with them.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And we're conditioned in business to blame the outside world because we're conditioned that the data is the market, the data is the economy, the data is the outside world. And is the market the market?

Yes.

Will you see the economy shift when something goes on globally or politically? Yeah, those things are connected, but that's not actually the reason why things fail inside of your business. Like, there is a deeper purpose going on that is trying to move through the threads and fabric of your business or your leadership role, whatever it is that you do in the world. And leaders, again, are conditioned to see the outside and fix it, but that's the thing that slows us down.

Yeah. It's so interesting because as you were saying that, I just flashed back to COVID. How is it that some entrepreneurs ended up thriving through COVID? In spite of that, they had the same shutdown requirements and that they found ways to become innovative and creative with solutions where others just sat around and just went, "Woe is me! The world hates me. We're gonna die." But it's so interesting to see those dichotomy because even today, when you look at the even political spectrum of things that are going on, and and then when people will always flash back to what happened during COVID right? And you know, they'll talk about things like limiting freedoms and da da da da da. Look what it did to my business. And it's like we're still blaming the outside world.

Yep, on so many levels. Like, like another example, because you're right that COVID is such a big one. And if you live in the United States, or actually like we see what's going on in the US, we see this. I'm in Egypt right now and I'm surrounded by war literally on every side. Thankfully I'm in a safe country, right? But there is political turmoil everywhere and it's easy to blame. But another really good example of that is women in business. And this, you know, men, you're going to have your own iterations of this where we say, okay, well, the patriarchy and women get paid less. And, you know, it's harder to be respected because the thing is, there's truth in that. There is truth. Like, I look at how my white male partner does business and there are things that are just infinitely easier for him. It is not untrue. But if I were to see that as the problem instead of anything that's in me that feels triggered by that or resistant to that as like, oh, whoa, whoa, that's actually the opportunity, right? So regardless of how very real the things that are going on in the outside world are, and many of them are, the way that they are occurring to us in our experience is our opportunity to release the pressure and create more freedom. I love that.

I love that because the onus again comes back to us, doesn't it? Ultimately, you know, the Viktor Frankl, the Viktor Frankl quote about, what was it? Between conflict and outcomes, there's a big gap. And in that gap is our ability to choose our reaction.

100%. I was guiding some students in our 5-day challenge. We were going through an exercise and one of my students who's been around for a while but was doing the challenge, so he was pretty tapped in. He had this literal experience. And this, it sounds almost like cultural appropriation, but it was like, no, this was the experience. He basically like time traveled into Nelson Mandela in prison and was like, oh my God, I finally get what this is now to see your oppressor as the gift, to see your oppressor as the very thing that frees you. And then now he's able to activate that same energy and the things that he found trapping and oppressive in his business. Wow!

That must have been really profound. I'd like to get into some strategies. Now that you've mentioned that, I'd like to get into some strategies that business owners, managers, leaders can take and what they need to consider in order to kind of get into this flow state that you talk about. And we'll get to that right after this. When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with a new book, Lights! Camera! Action!, Business Operational Excellence Through the Lens of Live Theater by Marc Haine. Marc uses his business and acting experience to help you see your business like a live show so you can create a performance your customers will never forget. Buy Lights! Camera! Action! today at your favorite online retailer or directly at marchaine.com. Welcome back! I am speaking with Jordana Eyre. Jordana, since I selfishly plugged my book, why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about your book?

I loved your plug, by the way. I was like, this is well done. Tell us about what now? No apologies.

Tell us about your book.

My book. Oh gosh. So, I do have a book. I've got another one coming out soon. The current book is called Thrive as a Leader in the Face of Ever-Increasing Pressure Without Sacrificing Any of Your Personal Fulfillment. And so, it is also, you can see that the primary title is Unshakeable above that. So, this is going to walk you through an entire methodology, actually. of how to thrive as a leader. So, we often think that fulfillment and impact in leadership aren't meant to go together. If we strive for more impact, we're going to lose sight of fulfillment. Or if we strive for deepening our fulfillment, our relationship with ourselves, with something bigger than ourselves, we lose sight of the impact. This book will break down the how, all the systems and all the processes of how to take your impact, your fulfillment, and scale both together.

Love that. Love that. And it's available on Amazon, I assume?

Yes, I believe so. It's also available definitely on my website.

Okay. So, we will put the links in the show notes to make sure people can get it.

Yes, it's free on my website.

Yeah. Okay, terrific. And so, you talk about hidden architecture of growth. What is that all about?

So, if you look at— I don't know if they can see a full screen of me, but if they— if you look at like even that little tiny aspect of a swirl right behind me.

There we go.

Thank you. What you see right behind me is the Fibonacci sequence. Now, mathematically speaking, that is just a very simple mathematical ratio of like, okay, the past numbers add up to the present numbers, add up to the, you know, create a future number. And it really shows us how numbers scale. But that's not what it's about in nature and creation, right? So if you look at a plant growing in a time-lapse video, or you pick up a seashell off the beach, you see it grows in a spiral. This Fibonacci sequence is the spiral that is moving through nature and all forms of creation, including us, our relationships, and our businesses, and our leadership roles. And so, the natural systems of creation are using this. There is a structure and there is a flow, which is why when we go all the way into structure or all the way into flow, we lose sight of really being able to scale with freedom. So, that's what I do is I teach people how to break down the systems, but not from the math, not for— although I do teach plenty of science, not from the math or the science, from really attuning our bodies and our energy fields and our leadership to the energies of how creation's moving so that you're working with the flow of it instead of against.

I love that. For everybody who's tuning in, if this is resonating with them, how can they get in touch with you?

Okay. So, my website, sparrowgrowthsystems.com. Also, well, yeah, I guess I'll go ahead and say it now. There's a— we offer a 5-day challenge. And if you go to spiralgrowthsystems.com/challenge, you're going to see a way to sign up for the priority list to be notified when we're about to launch a challenge. And when you get notified in the priority list, you'll also get a special price. So get on that list, please. But also you can sign up for the newsletter on the website or find me on LinkedIn. That's the one primary area, LinkedIn or YouTube, really. Find me on YouTube, Spiral Growth Systems, or on LinkedIn, Jordana Ayre, and we can stay in touch there as well. But definitely get on my newsletter.

So, so let's talk a little bit more about this Fibonacci sequence, because when you mentioned it in your notes, it's like, oh, when I was taking some graphic arts courses, this became kind of the model by which we do page layouts and graphic layouts. And, and so how is this relating to leadership and one's need to scale and get into a flow that is gonna be productive?

This is a good question. So just the way you saw it in graphic design, engineers use this to build things. Uh, I've seen people working in financial markets use it to diagnose why a market goes in a downturn and how to shift things. So this, it's really like the flow of creation is always using the scale format of Fibonacci, of the Fibonacci sequence. In leadership, where we tend to fall short and why we need this so badly is that we try to scale from the doing and not the being, right? And so, what will happen is you will, you'll work hard, you'll hustle, and you'll build a bunch of stuff, but you're building it on a house of cards. And when we learn the energy systems of the Fibonacci, so some, if you want some tangible examples, some of this is like learning to work with paradox, where 2 truths are true at the same time. Learning to work with nonlinear strategy models, learning to work with empathy and discipline at the same time, learning to work with masculine and feminine energy, structure and flow. So these are all elements of like how the Fibonacci actually teaches us literal sense to lead. And when we use its teachings to lead, it will build a firmer, stronger foundation so that everything you're building is safer and you're standing on a sustainable foundation so that as you scale, you're not having to give up kind of that impact fulfillment dynamic.

Yeah.

that we talked about with the book, right?

Mm-hmm.

You're not having to give up things as you scale this way, but instead you're able to, yes, say yes to more as you scale, because that's what a leader's gonna have to do. But my clients, for example, like I've seen clients 4x their businesses practically overnight, like in the course of 6 months, 4x a business and actually be more present with their families. Because that's what this structure and flow model, when we learn to work with the leadership dynamics and the, the doing and being and the energy dynamics, The structure and flow model gives us more energy, and it teaches us how to say yes and no to the things that are more aligned, and let things grow around and with us. So, we're not actually having to force it all to grow, but a lot of the growth happens organically too.

And so, how does, how does a leader learn to apply these principles into their business? Is it signing up for your 5-day challenge? Is it buying your book? Is there more resources out there? How does that play out?

The 5-day challenge is the best place to start. We also soon are going to be releasing a 4-part training series. So, if you sign up for my newsletter, we'll let you know when the 4-part training series is ready. But also, I very highly recommend the 5-day challenge. And if you even just— it's like, I'm not trying to just, you know, sell my stuff. Like, I am here to serve. And so, what I will also say is it starts with the body. It starts with the body, and it starts with learning how to feel inside of business. And I also mean this from a very logical standpoint, because strategy is about feeling too, like the actual next steps and the doing, whether it is, you know, whether you're in sales, whether you are in customer relationship, like whatever you are doing, whether you're working directly with technology and like scaling code, whatever you're doing inside of your organization or your company is going to require feeling, because the more we feel, the more in touch with the deeper dynamics of what's possible we become.

Is that what you, what you label the emotional alchemy?

So emotional alchemy is an aspect of the how things transform. When we learn to feel, we start to get in touch with a lot of what's underneath the surface going on in our unconscious. And as we do that, we start to recognize that there was more emotion beneath the surface than we realized. Most people, even really, really logical people, actually feel a lot. Like even the most seemingly non-feeling people.

Oh, you mean like engineers and finance CFOs?

Engineers, finance CFOs, people who appear to block out feeling. Usually it's just because deep down we can feel so much that it overwhelms the systems and the mind, which is why we want to start with the body. Learn how to use the feeling from the body rather than the mind, which is a whole process. Like I teach so many aspects of the process to get in touch with that. But ultimately what we're looking at is being a— so emotional alchemy, what we're looking at is getting in touch with what's going on in the unconscious. And when we recognize what's going on in the unconscious, it actually starts to teach us how to feel on a deeper level. And then our emotions start to become energy that move and flow. We learn how to work with them through a flow instead of through the way our minds want to work with emotion, which is what causes the resistance, causes the pushback, causes the relationship challenges, all of that. All the stuff we don't want with our emotions where, oh, well, I don't want to look like a weak leader, or, oh, well, I'm going to get fired from my job if I'm crying all day. Like all the things that we make up are going to be in the way if we get in touch with emotion actually dismantle. When we activate what's going on underneath the surface, which is simply feeling, movement of energy, learning to be with that, we'll literally transform the matter of our inner and outer world. And I know that's a big leap getting there. There's a whole process of how.

But it's interesting because it defies the demand for logic, right? Because when we do the strategic plan, it's all based on logic. When we— it's 1 1 2, 2 2 4. Right. It's, it's very logical. It's very, here's where we are, here's where we want to get to, let's plan it out. But you're saying now there's more under the surface that we need to deal with before we can ever get there.

Oh yeah. Like for example, I have a student who he is, he owns a software development company. He's an engineer, owns a software development company, and he had these very well-built-out products that just weren't selling. So his strategy was like, okay, we need to sell the higher level products because that's the way to financial freedom inside of the company. We're not gonna scale if we're not able to sell the higher level, but that's not happening. How are we gonna get that to happen? And as he let go and he started to work with emotional alchemy, literally the way his customers perceived the product started to change. They did not do anything different in the marketing. They did not do anything different in the sales or acquisition process. The customer perception started to change when he worked with what was going on in the energy undercurrents of what was actually the obstacle of why they weren't buying that product.

What would you say to the people tuning in who are like, oh, that's just a lot of woo-woo? Is there a test that they can implement right now to prove your point without having to go through a huge big investment of time, money, and energy to say, Here's something you can try. And if that works, you've just proved your point.

That's a really, really, really good question. One, like, one test is really also just to look back at your life. Now, I want to be clear, emotional alchemy is not the same as just letting go.

Right.

However, the beginning phases do include surrender, but like the deeper form of surrender. So, if you look back and you're like, have I ever just let go of something? And when I let go, What I wanted actually developed. If you can say yes to that, you have practiced alchemy and you just don't know it. Like, that is a solid litmus test for, wait, if I've let go of something and the energy— wait, so I felt a shift there. And when I felt a shift, I actually saw a shift. Or have you ever, like, gone to the gym or gone out for a run and you connect more to your body? And when you connect more to your body, suddenly you're more present. And when you're more present, Your world in front of you is like it's starting to change. Things are changing. And if you've ever experienced that, another litmus test for maybe it's not just a bunch of hooey.

There you go. And I think that's— for me, that becomes the big thing, right? Is we can look back at those experiences and go, oh yeah, that has happened. I thought it was just luck.

I thought it was just luck. Or like, I felt like there was a connection, but I didn't know what it was. It's ultimately very simple. Like the stuff that creates emotional alchemy. Like if I say I'm going to teach you the systems of the process to transform the matter of your inner and outer world, it sounds either like BS or incredibly complex.

Yeah.

The thing is, the only complexity is all the dynamics and the ways that we resist it. When we start to overcome the resistance, which is so much easier than it seems, ultimately, ultimately, when we start to overcome the resistance, we're like, oh, So I had this inside of me all along. Oh, wait. So what my body was wanting to do all along that I was just saying no to, when I let it do the thing, it actually shifts.

It's because I didn't have the time, Jordana. That's why I didn't listen to my body.

Oh, our relationship with time. Oh, is it not just the biggest illusion?

Right? I know, right? Hey, when we come back, I'd like to talk a little bit of some cautionaries and pitfalls as people want to make this shift. I'd like to explore what things they should be aware of. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back! We are having a great discussion. I hope you're getting tons of value from it today. As you can tell from our discussion, Jordana and I are deeply dedicated to supporting business leaders just like you. And if you're in the middle of maybe planning a leadership retreat, an industry conference, or you're looking for amazing content to help influence your teams, or you just need some expert guidance, we're just a message away. Feel free to reach out to us. We are open for conversation. And you can look on the show notes and get our contact information because we'd We'd love to help you overcome your challenges, discuss how we can maybe collaborate with you to help you achieve your goals. So, don't be shy. Just do it. Jordana, so this idea of having to take this step, what's the first step to shift from this force to more of this regenerative leadership that you've been talking about?

The first step is actually about the body. Now, the first step of the first step is going to be different for everyone.

Yeah.

I wish I could say that there was one, you know, linear binary, this is what it is for everybody. What I would actually say is the first step is feeling safe. And if you already feel safe in your body, then you got that. And you can move into the connection with your body. And if you already have a pretty strong connection with your body, then you got that, you can move into the connection with your sensory perspective. And it goes on and on from there. Now, just being connected to your body and just feeling isn't the only— like, that's not going to fully do it though.

Mm-hmm.

It's from there, starting to learn to work with the actual pressures. Like, back to what we were talking about with mindset. Excuse me, that if mindset— if we're just working with mindset, it's just wallpapering over the real stuff. It's not only about connecting to your body, learning to feel safe in it, etc., etc. It's like, cool, now that you can do that, How are you actually learning to work with the dynamics of the pressures and learning to see underneath what the real, quote unquote, like there's the illusion of the pressure, like, oh, I don't have enough time, or, oh, my team isn't as productive as they should be. There's those illusions, right? Or, oh, we have a financial block. I'm not making the money. Whatever the pressure is, there's the illusion of the pressure, and there's what our unconscious is really trying to work through inside of the pressure. So that's where it is, a deeper sense of inner work where I wish I could just give that away, you know, quickly, because it— I really do just love to serve. So if it were as easy as I could tell you now, I would.

Where's your magic wand, Jordana?

Right?

So, you know, we are in a highly technical world. You know, we've seen studies everywhere that, you know, if we could put technology down for a minute, we can— we would become more creative. Is that fair to say within the confines of kind of this spiritual and consciousness-based leadership growth concepts that we're talking about today? Is technology and innovation actually getting in the way of us becoming more grounded to who we are and to our own being? Or can it be a tool?

I believe it can definitely be a tool. And it is. It's a both and. It is not binary or linear. So there are ways in which technology is invading our ability to be. However, part of the path in our humanity that helps us be more powerful creators, which is a big part of even if you— I don't know why we're here any better than anybody else knows why we're here. But certainly in terms of what I believe in terms of why we're here, like there is this calling to create, this calling to know ourselves as creators. And what helps us be more powerful creators is on one hand sovereignty. So we are being invaded by technology. It is getting in the way. It is taking over really kind of our minds and bodies energetically. But also just from a practical standpoint, it's like it's teaching people to not think as much, things like that, right?

Right.

However, however, or it's distracting us. However, all of that is a path to sovereignty. So if we use that as, well, what's really the messenger? What is technology the messenger for? It's directing us back to our sovereignty. And then there's the other element of that same paradox in which it can bring us closer to ourselves. There are ways that we can use technology, whether it be it from a quantum perspective, learning to work hand in hand with it. There are absolutely ways that we can use it to become more creative. And like anything, it is all how you use it. You could use water to drown yourself or to hydrate yourself. You could use fire to burn down a village and kill a bunch of people or to, you know, bring warmth and cook food to that, right?

Exactly.

Anything, it's all how you use it. Technology is very much, and the growth of it is very much dependent on how we use it.

I know there's lots of talk right now with AI and people are feeling kind of scared by AI. The one thing, especially with all the lies that AI tells us, the one thing I think, the one magic thing that's gonna happen with AI, hopefully it teaches us to use more critical thinking, if anything, right?

Yes, more discernment.

Right?

I even noticed, like, I teach this stuff a living, and I will very clearly see if I'm using AI to work with a project and suddenly it starts glitching or hallucinating or lying to me, I realize, oh, there's something in me that's not fully connected to my sovereignty. So when I do the work to get back here, it starts working with me.

It's funny, isn't it?

It really is a direct reflection.

And so, you know, when we see, when we see the Gallup polls about trust in media, And all this sort of stuff, right? Like people are, we get information and then we believe the information because it feeds into our biases and, and kind of our value systems and all that sort of stuff. We just believe it. And so I'm hoping that with AI now, it's going to teach us to be more human from a questioning perspective, to be able to use critical thinking to question more of what we're seeing, more of what we're experiencing, and more of what we're being, because it's not necessarily the be-all end-all.

Oh, I'm so with you, Marc. So with you. And what you're naming about questions, it's like, you know how we're all born with a knowing and like something that just deep down we know if only the world XYZ, it would be a better place.

Right.

For me, questions were a big part of my inner knowing. Like, if only we could just ask really big questions and not have to try to answer them, but just walk in the questions and let them teach us. Oh, the world would be a different— and that is exactly what you're— it feels to me like that's exactly what you're speaking to.

Yeah.

And part of why AI is such a gift.

So, as people are consuming this content today, we're talking about this, you know, let's get away from this linear being in leadership. Let's really start looking more holistically at who we are as individuals in a bigger world. Let's look at how we're feeling about stuff. Are there cautionaries as people want to try to instigate a change, are there any things we should be aware of, pitfalls and cautionaries?

Now, are you asking specifically about AI or just in general?

No, I'm talking about, you know, as we mentioned just before we went live, the purpose of this show is to expose a concept to the audience that maybe they've never explored before. And now that we've explored it a little bit, we now know there's more we don't know. And so, but I want to, as a leader, I want to be able to explore kind of this idea, this concept, and bring it into my organization, bring it into my leadership, bring it to my team. But yet, are there any pitfalls and cautionaries? Because there is no magic pill that we should— so we should be aware of to make sure that our use and our effectiveness is such that it really ties nicely to our objectives on wanting to try it.

I love that question. What's interesting about what we are discussing here is that because it really is the both/and, on one level, there is nothing to be afraid of.

Yeah.

It— as long as you are really staying open to the both/and within anything, it's very unlikely that you're going to suffer or fall all the way. That being said, we as humans do have our own blinders.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And anytime, like, it's like anytime you think you're going all, like, you're a big yes to something and you're so excited about it and it becomes the way, the way, that's a cautionary tale. Please don't go that, you know, do your best to not just deem anything the way, right? When we're talking about certainly what, you know, creation and the Fibonacci sequence, anytime that we think that we are the ones doing it, Cautionary tale. There's going to be pitfalls, right? What I find is that really all the cautionary tales in utilizing this work in leadership tend to fall into what are our victim dynamics and what are our oppressor or narcissism dynamics. And they're all inside of all of us, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, as long as we're really walking that line and dancing the dance of like, okay, I'm identifying where I fall victim, and I'm identifying where I can be the oppressor. As long as we're dancing with both, then this power that we're working with, it can't control us and we can't control it. Instead, it is this beautiful co-creative dance. I love that. But if we lean into one or the other, yes, we could control, or it could control us. But it won't as long as we're dancing. With the both/and.

It does take a lot of intentionality and a lot of being present. And, you know, my fear as people consume this is that they'll start going one direction and not being, not being present or intentional enough to recognize that maybe they are skewing one side or the other, that they are, you know, saying this is the way as opposed to this is just a way.

100%. This is where You know, when I said, okay, if there's one place to start, it's feeling safe to feel, and then it's going into the feeling in the body.

Mm-hmm.

This is where the body really is the biggest support and guidepost there, because if we are, if we're going into an illusion or we're buying into an illusion, or we're going so far down some sort of a one side or a rabbit hole into something that does not serve us or does not serve the people around us, Our bodies will tell us. They will give us signals, signs, whether it is, you know, physical challenges, like you maybe—

Sleepless nights.

Suddenly you can't sleep or you're constipated or that, you know, skin condition came back. Our bodies will tell us. So it's really important to pay attention to our bodies in the process because the mind can do a really, really good job of convincing us that we're being present. Convincing us that we're actually doing the work.

Yep.

But our bodies are the ones that'll be like, uh, no, no, no, no, no.

Nice. I love that. Jordana, do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today?

No, I mean, I mean, there's always more, right? And maybe that is the last thought.

Of course, we could probably do a whole masterclass on this for like 3 hours if we, if we really wanted to dig deep.

We absolutely could.

I think we definitely could. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's always more. That's the thing is like, there's always more to go. And that's the beauty of this dance in our leadership too. And so, if I come back to, like, you know, what your show is about and the accidental leader, that's really where it all starts is going, oh, this is an accident.

Yep.

And so, I'm going to humble myself to that and then let that grow me. The more we realize we don't know, the more there's going to be to know.

Yes, absolutely.

And that's where it begins and ends. Brilliant.

Hey, could you remind everybody one more time how they can get ahold of you?

Definitely. So my website, sparrogrowsystems.com, is the easiest way. If you want to sign up for my newsletter, we send out weekly newsletters. Also go onto the page regarding the challenge, sparrogrowsystems.com/challenge, and get on the priority list for the challenge to be notified of the next 5-day Make Time Your Ally Challenge. And we will give you a special price deal when you sign up for that list and find me on LinkedIn.

Yay! Jordana, this has been an absolute blessing having you on the show. This has been a real joy. Thank you so much for making time.

I feel so honored and so grateful for the container you've created and getting to play with you in it. Thank you, Marc.

I love it. Thank you. Hey, why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to help you brainstorm your business with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. It would be my honor to be of service to you. And while you're at it, take a look at the link in the show notes for Jordana's 5-day challenge. It sounds like it would be super high value. Check it out. And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and leave a comment or review about this episode? I'd love to get your feedback. Was this of value To you. And of course, if you haven't done so yet, please make sure that you subscribe to this podcast. We have— I'm struggling to get to that 2,000 subscribers. So please make sure you subscribe. You'll get notifications when I bring you fresh new content each and every week with new guests, different guests, guests that are as brilliant as Jordana. Please make sure you subscribe. That's the only thing I ask in return for doing what I'm doing today. Thank you for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe. I hope you stay healthy. And I hope you dare to be the exception.

Bye for now. Thank you for joining us this week on Experience Leadership. Make sure you visit marchaine.com for a full directory of available episodes. While you're at it, if you found today's content invaluable, please share it and tell your friends about the show. As Marc says, knowledge is power, but only if you share it. Be sure to tune in each week for the newest episode. Please stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to be the exception.